Paterson bottling up mercury ban at plant

Review office of governor stymies DEC effort to end use of tainted fly ash at Lafarge cement facility in Ravena

BRIAN NEARING Staff write, Times Union

By BRIAN NEARING Staff writer

Published 1:00 am, Saturday, May 22, 2010

Possible mercury pollution from the Lafarge cement plant, located across the road from public schools, has been a Ravena community concern for years, sparking several health investigations, including a Harvard medical study.
(PHILIP KAMRASS)

The DEC request to yank permission from Lafarge North America for ash use at its Route 9W plant has been sitting in the Governor's Office of Regulatory Reform since October 2008, according to records obtained under the state Freedom of Information Act by the Times Union.

In the Oct. 27, 2008, letter, DEC Deputy Commissioner Alison Crocker asked the governor's regulatory office, GORR, to accept the ash ban proposal by December 2008 to allow DEC to "reduce the quantity of mercury emitted from cement manufacturing facilities."

On Friday, DEC spokesman Yancey Roy declined comment and referred calls to the governor's office. DEC is considering a renewal of the plant's air pollution permit, which expired in 2006.

When asked for comment, Paterson spokesman Morgan Hook e-mailed a single-sentence statement: "The regulation is still under review." A message left with GORR was not returned.

The behind-the-scenes inaction on fly ash outraged the leader of a Ravena citizens group that has been pushing DEC for two years to reduce Lafarge emissions of mercury and other pollutants.

"This is something that the state could do tomorrow to improve mercury emissions at Lafarge," said Elyse Kunz, co-founder of Community Advocates for Safe Emissions. "Why is this just sitting there? This lets DEC say they are trying, and lets Lafarge continue doing what they are doing."

Lafarge is the state's second-largest polluter of airborne mercury. Mercury is a toxic heavy metal that causes developmental problems in fetuses and children, primarily entering the body through consumption of tainted fish. Mercury primarily enters the food chain through water, where it can be transformed into toxic methyl mercury, and can poison loons, bald eagles and other wildlife.

Mercury is part of coal fly ash, a fine gray powdery waste left from burning coal at power plants, Considered "recycled air pollution control residue" by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the ash has contained increasing amounts of mercury and other toxic heavy metals left over from the burning of coal as pollution rules on power plants have grown stricter.

Ash has been used in cement manufacture in the high-temperature kiln at the Ravena plant since at least 1991, when it was owned by Blue Circle Cement, according to DEC records.

Lafarge uses between 30,000 and 60,000 tons of ash a year, according to a prepared company statement in 2008. Ash comes from the Danskammer plant in Newburgh, the Mount Tom plant in Holyoke, Mass., and the Hudson Generating Station in Jersey City, N.J.

While fly ash is less than 2 percent of the kiln mixture, it causes more than 10 percent of mercury emissions on average, according to tests done by Lafarge in 2008 at DEC request.

In one of the four tests, ash accounted for 19 percent of mercury emissions.

Mercury emissions at Lafarge have been under DEC scrutiny for more than two years. The plant is across the road from Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk schools, and about a mile from the Hudson River.

Kunz questioned if state inaction on fly ash might be tied to Lafarge's hiring of top lobbyist Patricia Lynch, a former aide to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has strong ties to state Democratic officials.

Lynch's firm went to work for Lafarge after June 2008, according to online records from the State Commission on Public Integrity. It was about the time DEC was moving against fly ash at Lafarge.

"Historically, the Governor's Office of Regulatory Reform has been the killing field for good regulations," said Blair Horner, legislative director the New York Public Interest Research Group. He said Lynch, whose company last year was the state's second-highest-paid lobbying firm, is a "hot-wire Democratic lobbyist with a long and deep history."

In November 2009, Deputy DEC Commissioner Val Washington told a panel of state lawmakers looking into mercury pollution that DEC intended to revoke Lafarge's permission to use fly ash.

At the time, Washington called the move "a logical step," adding "Why should the state take (mercury) out of some stacks, just to allow it to come out of others?"

To make cement, Lafarge blends ash with water, ground limestone, bauxite and iron ore. Called slurry, the mix is heated in a kiln to nearly 2,700 degrees to make "clinker," which is ground into cement.

Fly ash contains alumina and silica, which strengthens cement. Coal plants are eager to give away ash, rather than pay for disposal, making ash attractive compared to costly ingredients like shale or clay.

Cement kilns nationwide have dramatically increased use of ash, from about 1 million tons in 2001 to more than 4 million tons in 2006, industry figures said.